Through outdoor football games and tearing pages of textbooks, John Keating, an English professor, instructs his students on the dangers of conformity and the importance of seizing the moment. In Tom Schulman's Dead Poets, the students of Welton Academy, an all-boys preparatory school, wrestle between tradition and individuality. Mr. Keating emphasizes the value of emotion, mystery, and imagination through teaching romance. Welton's royalist administration, founded on the pillars of “tradition, honor, discipline [and] excellence,” contrasts with Keating's passionate teachings. With rigorous expectations, the classic film shows students' struggle between satisfying their passions or conforming to society. Through Schulman's characters Richard Cameron, Neil Perry and Todd Anderson, the film represents this conflict. By creating the traditionalist character Richard Cameron, Schulman promotes the realistic sparring partner of Keating's teachings. At the beginning of the film Cameron is holding the banner that reads "tradition", the paleness shows off Cameron's role as a traditionalist in the film. Cameron, a meticulous and determined student, is eager to please his teachers and parents. In Mr. Keating's first lesson of the year, when he first inspired many kids with his romantic philosophies, Cameron asked "Do you think he's going to test us on that stuff?" Cameron's observation shows that his only concern is his academic stature. In the following days, Mr. Keating's class will read a preface from the book by Mr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D., which provides an understanding of the poem by classifying its importance and performance. Keating is disgusted by the realist idea that a poem can be subjected to the same scrutiny as the “laying of a pipe.” Here... in the middle of the paper... again. The defiance of tradition and conformity to Nolan and the administration he represents proves that Todd is a transformed romantic. Through the characters of Richard Cameron, Neil Perry and Todd Anderson, the film explores the conflict between realism and romanticism. Richard Cameron represents the realist component as his traditionalist ideas and actions coincide with the administration. Neil Perry's character represents the romantic as he urges one to break free from his parents' traditional views. Finally, Todd Anderson represents both a realist and a romantic. At first he is a realist, but thanks to Keating's passionate teachings he grows into a deep romantic. In one of Keating's lectures he says: "we must constantly look at things in a different way", this quote further reiterates the importance of the difference in points of view, romantic or realist..